The Hour of Exemplary Love”: Gypsiness and Romanian Poetry
The Hour of Exemplary Love”: Gypsiness and Romanian Poetry

Summary/Abstract: Romanian poets’ literary interest in Gypsiness emerged at the beginning of the 19th century with the singular epic poem entitled The Gypsiad, by Ion Budai-Deleanu. Determined or not by socio-political circumstances, a number of other Romanian poets have been inspired by the ethno-racial particularities of the Gypsies ever since. Recent research shows that the image of the Gypsy in Romanian literature in general has differed from that in Western literature. This article explores a selection of poems related to Gypsiness, whose substance and subject vary significantly from one epoch to another, and argues that the early 20th century focus on ethnicity and race diminished during the communist regime, because of its rather assimilationist cultural politics, to eventually reach a budding plurality after 1989. More specifically, it examines the roles of poetry in blurring the color line between Gypsy and Romanian subjectivities and in reconfiguring Roma/Gypsy or mixed identities through poetry over the last decades of democratic regimes.

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